


Cupcake Batter

by TerminallyIntroverted



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: F/F, Friendship, Nyotalia, Romance, Slow Burn, This is basically a vent fic, Yearning, that one friendship breakup every queer girl goes through
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-18 09:00:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28740657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TerminallyIntroverted/pseuds/TerminallyIntroverted
Summary: Julchen and Madeline were inseparable, until they weren't. Years after their falling out, Julchen is still struggling to let go. Especially with Madeline living right across the street. With Julchen in her hometown for the summer, she's forced to reexamine what their relationship was, and how it ended. And they can also avoid each other for so long... (Fem!PruCan)
Relationships: Female Canada/Female Prussia (Hetalia)
Kudos: 5





	1. Protostar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes:
> 
> Cross-posted to FF.net. Copy and pasting my AN...
> 
> AN: Jesus, will I ever be free of this place? Anyway, this is a story I started a long time ago and abandoned, and I decided to pick it back up for, you know, reasons. One of my greatest sins in my other fics is never giving female characters any time to shine, so I decided to play around with nyotalia for a change. Why not?
> 
> Also, this story is HUGELY based on personal experiences. You know how every queer girl has a weirdly close friendship that ends in a dramatic friend-breakup? Yeah. That.
> 
> I'll leave it at that for privacy's sake but I'll definitely elaborate if you ask. Enjoy this silly little story! I imagine there will be several chapters, but in more bite-sized pieces than my other works. Thank you all!
> 
> Just as a refresher... Julchen: fem!Prussia, Madeline: fem!canada, Marianne: fem!France, Carmen: fem!Spain  
> (See the end of the work for more notes.)

Julchen always slowed down when she drove past her house; not slow enough that anyone would notice or call her creepy, but slow enough that she could see the light in her bedroom window and remember what used to happen there.

It was almost cruel, how Madeline was practically her next-door neighbor. The house was just as it was years ago, all red brick and manicured lawn, with the same red flowers and the same bent mailbox no one ever fixed. The only difference was that Julchen was no longer welcome inside. Julchen slowed her beat up car to a crawl, alone on the darkened suburban road, and looked over her left shoulder. The light was on. She kept her hands on the steering wheel, ever so slowly turning it towards her own street. She waited. Stared.

She wondered if her bedroom was the same, too.

But she saw no movement in the window and there was no point to this. Julchen shook her head lightly, silently cursing herself, and pressed the gas again. University vacations always did this shit to her. Within the minute she was parked in her own driveway, tired from her shift and reluctant to even exit the car. So, despite herself, she glanced at the house again.

For a long, still moment, there was nothing. Then – so quickly Julchen very well could have imagined it – a flash of blonde hair. Curled at the ends. Too perfect to be real.

And then she was gone again.

Her breath caught. Memory hit, longing hit, and Julchen all but jumped out of her car. Her stomach twisted into painful knots and she hated it. She slammed the door, probably too hard considering the car's age, and exhaled sharply from her nose. Three _years._ Three years and she couldn't get over this, couldn't get overMadeline and her stupid blonde hair _._ It was stupid. It was sad. Worse than anything, it hurt more than she ever wanted to admit.

Julchen stomped inside, grumbling to herself, kicking off her clunky boots as she entered the living room. She slammed the door behind her. This needed to end. It needed to end years ago, when everything between them finally fell apart and they parted ways once and for all. Every second she spent dwelling on it since then was a complete waste of time, especially after three _years_ and Madeline probably barely even remembered her name much less –

"Julchen?"

Julchen looked up the unlit steps to see her sister, Monika, staring down at her. Her short blonde hair was tossed from sleep, illuminated only by the light coming from her bedroom. Julchen almost felt bad for waking her, before she remembered it was barely eleven pm. "Monika," she said, "What's up?"

"Do you have to be so loud?" Monika grimaced. "Honestly."

Julchen rolled her eyes in the dark. She hasn't been _that_ loud. "Sorry, little sis," she said anyway. She picked up her boots from where she had cast them rather violently and set them neatly next to the other shoes.

"That's alright," said Monika. "How was work?"

"You know. Same old same old," said Julchen. When she wasn't away at school, she worked as a waitress in a grungy little dive bar and grill. It was an okay enough job. The tips were decent, her coworkers were fun, and they let her keep her piercings in, so she couldn't really complain. The only downside was the hours – she had gotten in at noon. "Did you work today?"

"No, not today." Monika worked at a local home improvement store, doing heavy lifting and grunt work that would make a marine nervous. "But I do tomorrow." She shot Julchen a scolding look. "At six am."

Julchen chuckled. "Good to bed, sis," she said. "You're going to need your energy to move all that literal shit around."

Monika mumbled something about barely ever working with the manure and retreated into her bedroom. The door clicked shut, and then, with her distraction gone, Julchen's attention was brought back to the rock in her stomach. Too tired to be pissed off anymore, she tiptoed up the steps and into her bedroom. She peeled off her fishnets, her frayed jeans shorts, her faded black t-shirt with the restaurant's name – _Edge of The Earth_ _–_ printed in tattoo lettering across the back. She pulled off her choker and hair tie, letting her tangled white hair fall over her shoulders and down past her chest.

Julchen took a deep breath. Everything was okay. Everything was more than okay, in fact. She was going to school, double majoring even, in history and music theory. She had a great job. Great friends. She even had a great sister, even if she had a stick up her ass half the time. Objectively, Julchen was thriving.

So why did she still miss her?

Julchen sighed; it was always the littlest of things that triggered this torrent. She marched herself to the shower in a more than likely fruitless attempt to clear her head. The hot water nearly burned her skin, tingling against her fingertips, matting her hair against her face. She took a series of deep, slow breaths. Fruitless. Of course. But it was going to be okay, just like it was always okay when this happened, because most of the time, Julchen was over this. Most of the time. And that was enough.

But now was not most of the time and of course after Julchen dried off and threw on a t-shirt and basketball shorts and launched herself into bed she found herself staring at her phone, searching Madeline's social media handles, trying to remember what platforms she was blocked on and the ones she wasn't and goddammit what kind of twenty-one-year-old girl never updated her Twitter? Julchen scrolled uselessly through Madeline's feed, eyes glazing over the barrage of aesthetic posts and memes, searching for something, anything she had actually written up and posted herself, any indication of how she was doing.

Hell, as horrible a person it probably made her, Julchen almost hoped to find something bad. Almost hoped for a vague post, some senseless vent, something sad or bitter or lonely or anything less perfect than Madeline's stupid hair let on, really. Then maybe, just maybe, Julchen could believe that Madeline missed her, too. Or even that she thought about her at all. She wanted to believe there was something missing in her old best friend's life, and that that something was her.

There was something missing from Julchen's life, obviously. Or else she probably would not be doing this right now.

With a low groan, Julchen locked the screen and slammed the phone on her bedside table. Madeline had always been too proper to word-vomit her problems onto social media anyway. If anything was wrong, Julchen had no way of knowing. "Not like it matters," she mumbled against her pillow and instantly didn't believe herself. Deep down, at least part of her hoped Madeline was miserable.

If the cruel thought was supposed to make Julchen feel better, it didn't. She tried to sleep only to end up lying awake, maybe uncomfortable, maybe just too wound up, until she gave up on counting sheep and allowed her traitorous mind to return to how it all began.

.

Junior year was pretty good for Julchen, as far as high school years went. Stuck in the off limbo between being an underclassman and redeeming her senioritis pass, she spent the majority of her time dicking around, breezing through classes, and generally just trying to fill up the days. But she couldn't complain, as she had her two closest friends, Marianne and Carmen, to help her through the tedium. They even followed her to the lowest effort physical education class she could find, one that claimed to be about teambuilding and leadership but ended up being a whole lot of sitting.

Julchen sat sandwiched between the two of them in the darkened dance room, some supposedly inspirational movie blaring away on the projector. Marianne was texting away on her iPhone to her girlfriend of the month, giggling and distracted. Carmen was using her bag as a pillow and watching some ridiculous soap opera on her tablet. Julchen's phone was dead.

"Great cinema right here," said Julchen, elbowing Marianne and pointing to the screen. The main character of the movie was currently in the throws of a badly acted breakdown. "Look. You can totally see him smiling."

Marianne hummed without even looking up from her phone, tapping away. Julchen glanced over her shoulder at the screen. Marianne was in the midst of crafting a paragraphs long message, littered almost obscenely with emojis. Julchen might have teased her if she was confident Marianne would react. There was just no talking to her sometimes.  
So Julchen turned her attention to Carmen, who at least removed an earbud when Julchen nudged her. "Is this the one where the husband is having an affair with the maid?" she whispered as the film raged on. "Or the one where the virgin gets pregnant?"

Carmen hit pause on the screen. "Pregnant virgin!" she said a little too loudly. A couple of people turned to look at her. "You wouldn't believe it, Jules. Jane finally had her baby, but then he got kidnapped the very same day! And Sin Rostro is demanding a ransom!"

Julchen had genuinely no idea what Carmen was talking about, and her confusion only mounted as she continued to ramble on. But she nodded along anyway – anything to relieve the boredom. This class was as an easy credit, at least, but sometimes she wished she had picked something a little less dull. Carmen and Marianne made it entertaining, usually, if they weren't completely consumed in their own activities.

Julchen kind of wished she had her own activities.

"Well, I have to pee," she announced to no one. Carmen had long since finished her rave about the previous episode of her show and dived into the next one; Marianne was still writing that text. So Julchen treaded awkwardly through the huddle of teenagers and made her way to the restroom, even though she didn't really have to go.  
Upon returning, Julchen made the conscious decision to sit to the side of Marianne and Carmen instead of between them. It's not like they were paying attention to her, anyway, she thought… even her internal voice was a little too pouty for her liking. Julchen slid down the padded wall and wedged herself next to a girl she didn't know.

"'Scuse me," she whispered, careful not to inflict too much unwanted bodily contact on this stranger.

"You're fine," the girl whispered back. She had long blonde hair, slightly curly, tied neatly into pigtails that would look childish on most people. She wore thick rimmed glasses that made her eyes look big. Julchen recognized her somewhat, having been with the same people in this class all year. She thought her name was Madeline.

"Madeline, right?"

"Mm-hmm." Madeline glanced down at the tablet on her lap – the screen was covered in text. Maybe an e-book. She quickly locked it. "And you're… Julia?"

Julchen almost laughed. It was a common mistake. "Julchen, actually. But it is hard to pronounce, so some people call me Julia or Jules. I don't care, really."

"Oh, I'm sorry," said Madeline anyway. She tilted her head thoughtfully. "Julchen? I hope I'm pronouncing that right."

She pronounced it surprisingly well, actually. "Yeah, you got it." Silence fell, and Julchen felt an immediate need to fill it. "What were you reading?"

"Oh! Um…" Madeline fidgeted with the buttons on her tablet, flashing the lock screen a couple times. It was a drawing of a character Julchen recognized. "It's silly."

Julchen quirked an eyebrow. "What is it, Fifty Shades or something?"

"No! Nothing like that!" Madeline practically yelled. Their teacher shot her a stern glance, and she lowered her voice. "It was… fanfiction, actually." Her mouth twitched into a small, guarded smile.

"Oh, okay. Awesome," said Julchen. She waited a moment and asked, "Fanfiction of what?"

"Oh. Um." Madeline did that fidgeting thing with her tablet again. "It's for _Girls of The Stars_."

"No way," said Julchen, almost laughing now. _Girls of the Stars_ was an animated series centered around gorgeous alien girls with magical abilities fighting evil in space – with the power of friendship, of course. It was melodramatic, it had next to no production budget… and Julchen was obsessed. She honestly thought she was the only person on earth as invested in that series as she was. It certainly wasn't Marianne or Carmen's thing. "That's kind of my shit."

"Really?" Madeline's eyes lit up behind her glasses. She leaned closer to Julchen, blonde pigtails falling over her shoulder and gazing Julchen's arm. "Do you, um…" She hesitated, but only for a moment this time, "…have any pairings you like?"

Julchen just looked at her. "Vega and Polari totally belong together."

"Right?" Madeline made a sweeping gesture with her hand, slicing through the projected light from the movie. "That episode where Polari finally figured out how to use the celestial staff made it obvious. You cannot tell me the animators had Vega look at her like that and expect us to think it was platonic."

Finally, someone understood. Julchen nodded vigorously. "Exactly! She never would have done it if Vega didn't believe in her so much, anyway." She chose her next words deliberately. "I've definitely read a few stories about what happened after that."

Madeline immediately grinned, turned, and started unlocking her tablet, fingers flicking quickly across the numbers. She kept the screen open this time. "I have something to show you," she said. "It's an AU where Vega is an astronomer – oh yeah, she's human in this one. Anyway, she keeps getting weird interference with her machines, and it turns out Polari is this… Oh, I don't want to spoil it. Everyone is so in character, it's incredible. And the writing is so pretty. There's this one part where Vega is studying the constellations, and…" She paused. "I'm sorry, I'm rambling."

"No," said Julchen quickly. In the months they had been in this class together, she could barely remember hearing Madeline say two words. Listening to her speak so openly, so passionately, especially about something she seemed to not talk about much, was nice. It made Julchen feel special. "That sounds awesome. Tell me more about it."

Before Madeline could say much of anything about the story, the piercing sound of the bell broke through their conversation. Julchen blinked – was it the end of the period already? She was surprised to find she was disappointed. Their teacher stood from where he was parked on his laptop to shut off the movie, and soon after flick on the lights. Julchen blinked a few times, her eyes adjusting, and glanced back to where her things were scattered between her friends. She made no move to collect them.

"Guess I'll have to tell you about it some other time." Madeline carefully folded the cover on her tablet and placed it in her bag. "Or I could send you the link?"

Julchen's immediate thought was that she would rather have Madeline explain the plot to her, but she decided to keep that to herself. "Sure. Just send me a Facebook message. My last name is Beilschmidt, but I don't think there's going to be a ton of Julchen's to sift though." She waited a beat, stood. "We can talk about the story later. After I read it."

"Sounds good."

Madeline finished packing her bag and stood as well, and only then did Julchen realize how short she was. She barely came up to Julchen's shoulder. Julchen almost wanted to laugh, but decided to keep that to herself, too.

"Well, see you later, then?" Madeline had to look up to meet Julchen's eyes. When she did, Julchen suddenly did not feel like laughing anymore.

"Yeah, I-"

"Julchen, come on!" shouted Carmen from across the room.

Julchen shot Carmen a look and stuck out her tongue. Carmen laugh-screamed an obscenity. Marianne kept texting. They could wait, Julchen thought rather coarsely. She looked back to Madeline and gave a little smirk. "I'll see you later," she said.

* * *

_To be continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another note, Girls of The Stars isn't a real thing, I just didn't want to use a real fandom, to be honest. Imagine something close to Steven Universe or Sailor Moon :)


	2. Stellar Nebula

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Chapter 2 of whatever this is! It's getting way too personal lmao! wlw angst hits entirely too close to home

Julchen cleared the table with unsteady hands, slightly delirious, and cursed when she knocked a half full glass of soda on its side. This had been a terrible shift. All day she had been forgetting orders, bringing food to wrong tables, dropping things, and getting scolded. She blamed it on lack of sleep, only having managed a few hours. And she knew exactly what had kept her up.

Fucking Madeline. No matter what Julchen did, she could not shake her from her mind. Her usual methods of distraction weren't working. Reminding herself of Madeline's faults – she could be kind of a crybaby, and her nose was kind of small, Julchen guessed – wasn't working. Hell, not even the shot of Jack she did with the bartender when no one was looking had helped. After all the time Julchen has spent torturing herself over Madeline, this felt different, somehow. The thoughts were like mosquito bites - impossible to ignore even if she tried not to scratch at them.

Julchen finished soaking up the sticky stain and tossed the rag onto her pile of plates. Three more hours. She could manage three more hours, she told herself as she gave the table one final once over and started towards the kitchen. Three more hours and she could snag something to eat from one of the chefs who owes her a favor, go home, and have a nice dinner. She could go to bed early and forget this whole mess. Better yet, she could call Marianne or Carmen and grab a drink, do some quality bitching and finally -

"Oh, Julchen."

Broken too quickly from her thoughts, Julchen gasped, lurched forward, bumped into a misplaced chair, and promptly lost her grip on what she was holding. In a moment that felt like a year, the half dozen dirty dishes cascaded down to the floor and shattered with a tremendous clang. Julchen closed her eyes. Stupid, stupid…

"Argh!" exclaimed the voice Julchen now recognized as her manager, Chun-Yan. "For heaven's sakes. Can someone get a broom?"

As someone in the kitchen immediately complied, Julchen stood in the same spot, eyes still closed, too embarrassed to move. She had had off days before, but this was getting ridiculous.

"Shit. I'm sorry," said Julchen finally, stooping down to the floor. She picked up a few large chunks of broken ceramic and continued in a mumble. "Who left the stupid chair there anyway? Seriously…"

Chun-Yan shook her head, waving her hand side to side. "No, no, stand up. I do not want you to cut yourself."

Julchen did as she was told just as one of the line cooks swooped in with the broom. "I don't know what's going on tonight," she said. "I think I'm just tired."

Chun-Yan crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. "Tired?" she said, looking up at Julchen with a firm gaze. "Is that all?"

"I think so," said Julchen, knowing damn well she wasn't a good liar. But what was she supposed to say, really?

Chun-Yan did not believe her - it was obvious in the quirks of her eyebrow, in the purse of her lips, in the little sigh when she finally dropped her gaze. "Alright. Well." She looked to the line cook, who had finished cleaning the mess, and shooed him away with a sharp flick of her head. He practically sprinted back to the kitchen. Chun-Yan looked back to Julchen. "Maybe it is best if you head home for the night."

Julchen felt her stomach twist. She wiped her sweaty palms on her apron and wondered just how badly she'd screwed up. "Are you firing me?" she asked, sounding a bit pathetic.

"Oh, please. No. There really is no need to get dramatic," said Chun-Yan, flippant but with a kindness in her eyes. "We all have off days."

Madeline never seemed to have off days. Julchen blinked back against the thought, exhausted by this cycle. "But I'm a closer," she said uselessly.

"We will manage." Chun-Yan flipped her hand around. "Come on now, off with you. Get some rest. I'll even send you home with one of those bratwurst sandwiches you like, if you promise to be less in your head tomorrow."

Julchen smiled, albeit weakly. Chun-Yan was a big softy under that tough exterior. "Okay, thank you. Really," she said. "I'll be on top of my shi- game, tomorrow. Promise."

"Good." At the sound of laughter, Chun-Yan suddenly whipped around and stormed towards the kitchen. "Hey! Quit fooling around! We have orders to finish, people; am I the only one who does any work around here?"

So Julchen left, a little embarrassed and a little relieved. She was losing out on some hours, but this heavy, bone-soaking exhaustion convinced her it was for the best. It was a kind of tired she hadn't felt in months, maybe years.

Three years, probably.

It was a clear night. Stars dotted the sky, bright and invasive, for Julchen slightly bleary. She drove slow on the empty roads she would usually speed through. Part of it was exhaustion - she was hyper-focused, scared of zoning out - but mostly she drove slow because she was unwilling to reach her destination, knowing what she would find there and how it would make her feel, again. So she watched the trees in the wind and counted the stop signs and tried to remember when it all went wrong.

And when Julchen passed Madeline's house and the bedroom window was lit up even brighter than the stars, she didn't just slow down. Julchen pulled over to the side of the road and parked, hoping no one would notice.

.

The first message came that very same afternoon, when Julchen was lying in bed, flicking through her phone and pretending she would start her chemistry lab soon. An alert from Facebook messenger popped up on the screen, an app she rarely used. Julchen abandoned Instagram and opened it a little too quickly.

_Madeline Williams: Hey, Julchen! It's me. I have that fic for you. Don't feel like you have to read it right away or anything… only if you want._

The next immediate message was a link. Julchen gave a short laugh, opened the story in a new tab and made a mental note to read it very soon.

Thanks, she typed back. _I'll definitely check it out._

Okay! For a moment, Julchen stared at the screen and wondered if this was going to be the end of their exchange. But the three dots popped up again, soon followed by another message from Madeline. _What's up?_

Julchen paused, fingers doing a little dance above the keyboard. She could tell her the truth, that she was doing nothing, that at this time in the afternoon she rarely did anything, but that would be a little lame.

 _Just hanging out with some friends_ , she lied. To be fair, it would have been the truth, if Marianne hadn't bolted away to find her girlfriend the moment school let out and Carmen wasn't… well, running around doing Carmen things, she guessed. Come to think of it, her friends were being a little bit distant lately. Julchen rolled her eyes to herself. Whatever.

_Oh, how fun!_

Julchen furrowed her brows, smirking, almost laughing. How strangely proper. It reminded her of the time she had taught her grandmother how to text, only to receive three pictures of the bathroom sink and the words "turtle soup" a few hours later.

Julchen glanced around the empty room before replying. _Yeah, I guess. Hoping not to be caught in her fib, she quickly changed the subject. What's up with you?_

 _Nothing, honestly_ , replied Madeline immediately. Julchen just stared at the words. Maybe she could have just told her the truth. But before she could find a way to continue this, find a way to keep Madeline from getting bored, she received another message. You know, I kind of wish you weren't busy. It might seem a little sudden, but I was actually going to ask you over.

Out of all the things Madeline could have said, Julchen was not expecting that from her. Something told her she didn't extend invitations to her house to near strangers very often. In her contemplation, she forgot to respond.

 _I wouldn't want to force you._ I realize it might seem a little odd, since we just started talking and all. _It's just I realized you're right next door._

Gears turned in Julchen's mind, confused, until she realized she had in fact seen Madeline before this year. Freshman year, they had shared a bus. They had never said more than two words to each other, but she could scarcely remember Madeline boarding just one stop after her own. She did, in fact, live right down the street.

Well shit. She typed the words without thinking. _I guess you are. What did you want to do at your house?_

 _Oh, nothing special. Watch some girls of the stars. Maybe do some homework._ A pause. That sounded pretty appealing, Julchen mused to herself. _I have snacks._ Another pause. That sounded even better. _But I know you're busy._

Julchen froze. Shit.

 _We were just finishing_ , she typed hurriedly, cursing herself for lying to begin with. What was the point, even? _I can still come if you want._

 _Oh, okay._ Julchen swore she detected Madeline's suspicion through text alone, but whatever. Madeline was probably too decent to call her bluff anyway. _Head over anytime then, only if you want of course!_

Julchen swallowed the annoying jump in her throat and sent a couple thumbs-up emojis. It wasn't that she was nervous… no, of course not. It was just that she had a solid group of friends, and the thought of making new ones just… didn't cross her mind all that often. That was all. With a gentle shake of the head, Julchen pocketed her phone, rose from her bed, and sifted through the outerwear section of her closet for her favorite jean jacket – the one covered in band logo patches – and made her way down the street before she had time to think about it.

After taking a cleansing breath, Julchen rang the doorbell. A second later – like, literally a second, it was fast to the point of weird – Madeline opened the door. "Julchen! Thank you for coming over!"

"Oh, yeah, not a problem, girl." Girl? Julchen was overcome with the sudden urge to punch herself in the face. She decided to keep talking. "You said you had snacks?" …And that was even worse. Two seconds in and she was demanding food. Julchen started to think she should get out more often.

"Yep! Come on in," said Madeline cheerfully. If she thought that exchange was as awkward as Julchen thought it was, she didn't show it.

Julchen nodded and stepped inside Madeline's house. They lived in the same neighborhood, so it wasn't too terribly different from her own house, layout wise. The difference was the decorating. Julchen's grandmother tended to keep things pretty simple, while whoever Madeline lived with seemed to prefer maximalism. On every available surface were little trinkets and figures, most notably a lot of bears. Ceramic, stuffed, even crotchet. It was cute, if not a little bit odd.

"Nice… bears," said Julchen.

"Oh, thanks. Silly little collection of mine. My sister's thing is eagles."

Julchen looked around again. Yep, there were a bunch of eagles right alongside the bears. She wondered why she only noticed the bears the first time. "That's cool. My thing is canaries. My sister's thing is being a hardass." She paused. "Or dogs, I guess."

Madeline blinked, maybe a little confused, and then giggled. "I guess we all have something. Did you want something to eat?"

Julchen had actually finished most of a bag of chips before coming here, so she wasn't actually hungry at all, she had mentioned snacks for pretty much no reason, did this really have to be this complicated? "I could eat, yeah."

"Okay!" Madeline walked to the kitchen and opened the fridge. "Hm, let's see… I've got apple slices, hummus and pretzels, cheese sticks…" She trailed off and shut the fridge, going instead for the pantry. "Oh! I forgot! Stuff for cupcakes!"

Cupcakes sounded amazing. Actually, Julchen had never wanted cupcakes more in her life than she did in this exact moment. Suddenly it felt as though she had not eaten in days. "Cupcakes for sure," she said and then quickly added, "if it's not too much trouble."

"It's not problem at all," said Madeline, already fishing a mixing bowl out of the cabinet. "After all, it's just stuff out of a box. Nothing too fancy."

Julchen chuckled. "What, not from scratch?"

Madeline put the mixing bowl back down. "Oh, no, sorry. If that's not good…"

"No!" shouted Julchen, way too aggressively. She bit down on her cheek and continued softly. "No, I mean, I was totally joking. The boxed stuff is usually better anyway."

"Right?" said Madeline. "I can't bake to save my life, but these are usually pretty hard to mess up."

"I can't really bake either. My sister was always better in the kitchen," said Julchen, surprised how easily she could admit this to her. "I bet we can figure it out together. No way my awesome self will be defeated by boxed cupcakes."

"Right, right," said Madeline. She opened the box and dumped the contents into the bowl. "If you don't mind, could you grab the eggs?"

Fifteen minutes, a series of misunderstandings, and a dash of regret later, Julchen was staring down at a bowl of what should be cupcake batter, but closer resembled some kind of chunky soup. First, they had added an extra egg because they had both done so without alerting the other. Then, they had barely used any oil because Madeline dropped most of the bottle in the sink, so they made up the difference with probably too much water. Finally, they could not find the stand mixer, so Julchen had to rely on her own strength and a spoon. All the extra liquid wasn't exactly mixing properly.

"I… don't think it's supposed to look like that," said Madeline, taking off her glasses and wiping them on her shirt.

"Ah, nonsense," said Julchen even though Madeline was completely right and they both knew that, but whatever. "They'll just have a little extra flair. Let's get these bad boys in the oven."

Julchen picked up the bowl and poured the batter into the little paper cups in the cupcake tray, trying not to notice how lumpy it was. She quickly shoved the pan into the oven and shut the door. "Now we wait!" she said triumphantly, as if they had accomplished something.

"Now we wait," agreed Madeline. "Want to watch some silly space girl cartoons?"

Cupcakes, stupid, low-budget kid shows with weirdly big adult followings? Julchen briefly wondered what Carmen and Marianne were doing. Definitely nothing this cool, that was for sure. "You bet," she said.

Madeline's room was pretty similar to the rest of the house, but with somehow even more bears. Her entire bed was covered with teddy bears, most notably a large white one that was probably bigger than Madeline herself. "You can just move them aside," said Madeline, sitting down on her bed and opening a MacBook with a pink cover. "Sorry there's not much seating in here. If we're being honest, I don't generally have a lot of company."

"No?" said Julchen, a bit surprised. She gingerly stacked a few bears on top of each other to make room and sat down next to her. It was a twin bed.

Madeline shook her head, her long blonde pigtails swishing side to side. "No, Amelia usually has about a million people over on every given day. I usually just don't bother."

"Is Amelia your sister?" asked Julchen.

She had heard that name around school quite a few times. Amelia Jones was one of the popular girls, to her understanding, and had a reputation for being a loudmouth and a party animal, as well as the star of nearly every sports team the school offered. She and Julchen had never spoken, but she had seen in her the halls plenty of times, definitely-dress-code-breaking mini skirt swishing around as she ran around to greet each of her million friends. She seemed nice enough, if not a little obnoxious. Julchen had no idea her and Madeline were related, although now she could see the resemblance. Personality wise, they were nothing alike.

"Yep, twins," said Madeline. "She's at her girlfriend's right now."

Julchen wondered briefly why she knew so many lesbians. Oh well, probably didn't mean anything. "Cool," she said.

"Okay, first things first, there's this AMV you absolutely must see," said Madeline, quickly tapping away at the keyboard.

Some time later, Julchen was sitting with one of the teddy bears tucked in her lap, munching away at what was probably the worst cupcake she had ever tasted in her life. It was gooey in the middle and strangely crisp on the outside, tasted like poorly mixed eggs, and the frosting was thin and dripping off because they had iced them too soon. But for some reason, she could not stop eating the damn things.

"Okay," said Julchen, motioning wildly to the screen. "I like this arc and everything, but you cannot convince me The Red Queen deserved to get redeemed."

"You don't think so?"

"No!" cried Julchen. A few cupcake crumbs fell to the comforter. "She kept all those people imprisoned for like, four thousand years! Not to mention she tried to destroy earth about a batrillion times!"

"But she never succeeded," countered Madeline, brushing the crumbs away. "Honestly, I would argue she never actually wanted to destroy earth to begin with."

Julchen scoffed. "Okay, that's a reach."

"No way!" said Madeline, motioning to the screen just as frantically. "Look, you can totally see the remorse in her eyes right there. Plus, in the last arc, it was implied she had someone she loved back on earth. And in the final arc, when she was in the ancient ruins, some people theorized the scrolls were from that person."

"Those were from the girls' ancestors, that was confirmed."

"Okay, but what if she was in love with one of them?"

Before Julchen could argue back about that, her phone vibrated in her pocket. A bit annoyed to be broken from this debate – that she was about to win, by the way – she looked at the screen and saw Monika's name. "One sec," she said and hit accept. "What's up?"

"Julchen, where on earth are you?"

"Oh, um…" Julchen looked outside and realized it was dark. Looking to Madeline's bedside clock, she saw it was nearly ten pm. Jeez, how had it gotten to be so late? It felt like she had gotten there five minutes ago. "I'm just right across the street at my friend's place."

"Don't Carmen and Marianne both live in the next town over?"

Julchen could not decide what offended her more – that Monika apparently thought she only had two friends, or that, until roughly fifth period that day, she was correct. "My friend Madeline lives on our block."

"Oh." Monika sounded skeptical, but Julchen chose to ignore that. "Well, Oma wants you home. She's having trouble with the printer."

Julchen groaned. "Can't you help her with that?"

"I have homework."

"What if I have homework?" said Julchen, even though she had no intentions of actually doing that homework before tomorrow at lunch. But really, she knew she was not going to win this. "Fine. Give me like, five minutes." She hung up and turned to Madeline apologetically. "Hey, sorry. Looks like I have to head home."

"Oh, that's fine." Madeline shut the laptop. "Honestly, I lost track of time."

"Me too," said Julchen. "Thanks for having me."

"Of course! It was a ton of fun." Madeline stood from the bed, smoothing her red sweater. "Next time we're just buying the cupcakes, though."

"They weren't even that bad!"

Madeline shot her a questioning glance.

"Okay, fine. We'll buy the damn cupcakes."

Madeline watched Julchen to the front door and waved her goodbye, wishing her a safe journey from one side of the street to the other. Julchen was fumbling with her keys when she realized, with a strange jolt, that Madeline had implied a next time.

.

Julchen stared down at her keys, either unwilling or unable to leave her car and walk into her house. She couldn't find the energy to move. One question wore heavily on her mind, heavy enough to keep her rooted to his exact spot for what help like a decade.

When had there stopped being a next time?

To be continued...


End file.
